And he said to his disciples: The days will come, when you shall desire to see one day of the Son of man; and you shall not see it.

And he said to the disciples, Days are coming, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and shall not see it.

Then, turning to His disciples, He said, "There will come a time when you will wish you could see a single one of the days of the Son of Man, but will not see one.

And he said to his disciples, The time will come when you will have a great desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, but you will not see it.

And he said to his disciples: "The time will come when you will desire to see one day of the Son of man, and you will not see it.

The day will come," he said to his disciples, "when you will long to see but one of the days of the Son of Man, and will not see it.

(The days will come He here takes occasion to direct the minds of his disciples to the days of vengeance which were about to fall on the Jewish nation. Heavy calamities will befall the Jewish people, and you will desire a deliverer.
Ye shall desire - You who now number yourselves among my disciples.
One of the days of the Son of man - The Son of man here means "the Messiah," without affirming that "he" was the Messiah. Such will be the calamities of those times, so great will be the afflictions and persecutions, that you will greatly desire "a deliverer" - one who shall come to you in the character in which "you have expected" the Messiah would come, and who would deliver you from the power of your enemies; and at that time, in the midst of these calamities, people shall rise up pretending "to be" the Messiah, and to be able to deliver you. In view of this, he takes occasion to caution them against being led astray by them.
Ye shall not see it - You shall not see such a day of deliverance - such a Messiah as the nation has expected, and such an interposition as you would desire.

When ye shall desire to see one of the days - As it was our Lord's constant custom to support and comfort the minds of his disciples, we cannot suppose that he intimates here that they shall be left destitute of those blessings necessary for their support in a day of trial. When he says, Ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, he either means, ye of this nation, ye Jews, and addresses his disciples as if they should bear witness to the truth of the declaration; intimating that heavy calamities were about to fall upon them, and that they should desire in vain to have those opportunities of returning to God which now they rejected; or, he means that such should the distressed state of this people be, that the disciples would through pity and tenderness desire the removal of those punishments from them, which could not be removed because the cup of their iniquity was full. But the former is more likely to be the sense of the place.

(8) And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see (d) one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see [it].
(8) We often neglect those things when they are present which we afterward desire when they are gone, but in vain.
(d) The time will come when you will seek for the Son of Man with great sorrow of heart, and will not find him.

And he said unto his disciples,.... Who also were expecting a worldly kingdom, and external honours, and temporal emoluments, and riches; and therefore to take off their minds from these things, and that they might not have their expectations raised this way, but, on the other hand, look for afflictions and persecutions, he observes to them,
the days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the son of man; , "the days of the Messiah", a phrase frequently used in Jewish writings; that is, when they should be glad to enjoy one such a day in the personal presence of Christ, as they now did; and instead of looking forward for happy days, in a temporal sense, they would look back upon the days they have enjoyed with Christ, when he was in person among them, and wish they had one of those days again; when besides his corporeal presence, and spiritual communion with him, and the advantage of his ministry and miracles, they bad much outward peace and comfort: whereas in those days nothing but afflictions and persecutions abode them, wherever they went; so that by these words Christ would have them to understand, that they were not to expect better times, but worse, and that they would be glad of one of the days they now had, and in vain wish for it:
and ye shall not see it, or enjoy it. Moreover, days and opportunities of public worship, of praying to the Lord, of singing his praise, of hearing his word, and of attending on his ordinances, may be called days of the son of man, or Lord's days; see Revelation 1:10 even the first days of weeks, on which days the apostles, and primitive churches, met together for religious worship: and these may very well be called days of the son of man, since, on those days, he first appeared to his disciples, after his resurrection, John 20:19 and on the same days his disciples and followers met together to preach in his name, to hear his Gospel, and to commemorate his sufferings and death, Acts 20:7 and still continue to do so; and seeing he often meets with his people at such seasons and opportunities, fills them with his Spirit, communicates his grace, and indulges them with fellowship with himself, which make those days desirable ones: but sometimes so violent has been the persecution of the saints, that they have not been able, for a long time, to enjoy one of those days openly, and with freedom, though greatly desired by them; which may be considered as a fulfilment, at least in part, of this prediction of our Lord's: and therefore, whenever this is the case, it should not be thought strange; it is no other than what Christ has foretold should be: and it may teach us to prize, make use of, and improve such days and opportunities, whilst we have them, we know not how soon our teachers may be removed into corners, when we shall wish in vain for them; and seasons of hearing them, as is here suggested: sad it is to know the worth of Gospel opportunities, by the want of them!

The days--rather "Days."
will come--as in Luke 19:43, when, amidst calamities, &c., you will anxiously look for a deliverer, and deceivers will put themselves forward in this character.
one of the days of the Son of man--Himself again among them but for one day; as we say when all seems to be going wrong and the one person who could keep them right is removed [NEANDER in STIER, &c.]. "This is said to guard against the mistake of supposing that His visible presence would accompany the manifestation and establishment of His kingdom" [WEBSTER and WILKINSON].

Ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man. His second coming. The church longs for his appearing. See 2-Timothy 4:8.
For as the lightning. See notes on Matthew 24:16-18. The remainder of the chapter is a condensed and fragmentary report of a part of Matthew, chapter 24.

Ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man - One day of mercy. or one day wherein you might converse with me, as you do now.